


The dazzling lights beckon

by LadyWillow



Series: Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor [7]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6182056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyWillow/pseuds/LadyWillow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Truth must dazzle gradually<br/>Or every man be blind — Emily Dickinson</p><p>She had been prepared for the story to end one way. And then it changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The dazzle remained.

Even when they were interrupted by a Rose too fraught to take in their compromised position in Daniel’s chair – his hair disordered by her hands, her lips kissed red and swollen by his – the shimmering light of knowing there was a future remained.

Even as they snapped into action when Rose blurted out that Chief Thompson had been shot – she had heard his body hit the floor when in typically careless Jack Thompson style, he had neglected to return the handset firmly to the phone cradle. Rose had instantly called the hotel, the police, and emergency services – an ambulance was rushing through the crowded LA streets…

Daniel grabbed Rose’s nervously flapping hands, soothing them in his, “You did good, Agent. Everything right.”

The glow remained as she watched him deploy his men; some to the crime scene, some to escort the ambulance. He was a good Chief – calm, strong, and trusted by the men and women who served him.

Had she ever told him that she admired his steadiness? His competence? Those qualities may seem less romantic than the strength of his hands, the breadth of his shoulders, or the colour of his eyes. But she knew she had fallen in love with the content of his character.

And now there would be time to tell him all the good parts for which she suffered love, in the glimmer of a future she had not expected.

“Peggy? Hospital or hotel?” The tone in Daniel’s voice told her he had asked before.

“Where are you going?”

“The hospital. Need to see if he can tell us anything…”

“With you, then. The hospital.”

The sun shone so bright in LA that even dark glasses could not dim it. They drove in silence, Daniel clearly thinking two steps ahead, Peggy hardly able to think at all.

_She was not going back to New York._

_What would Angie do for a place now?_

_Perhaps she could come out to LA? Maybe Howard would give her a part in one of his ridiculous movies._

_Comic book movies!_

She was not going back to New York. To the home she had made when she left home.

She tipped her head back and looked up at the dazzling sky, so blue and clear it was like a window to another world. Palm trees (preposterous things) swayed in a gentle breeze.

And when the car stopped in front of the hospital, meeting the ambulance carrying Jack’s body, and they scrambled out of the car, she glanced at Daniel and for one moment the world stopped as he looked at her with a gleam of love in his eyes that she had long ago told herself she would never find.

Then it was the smear of disinfectant in hard bright corridors, the controlled chaos of a busy emergency room, the long elegant body of Jack Thompson tumbled from one gurney to another. Blood and swearing and “You can’t be in here” and Daniel standing firm: “Chief Sousa of the SSR. That’s my man in there. I’m not leaving.”

Agents scurrying like ants in a hill, bringing tidbits of information, rushing back with orders and demands from Daniel’s command post in the corner of the waiting room. No sign of anything taken. No explanation of why Thompson had been shot. Nothing to find in the room or the hotel. Suitcase and belongings all intact. Daniel’s frustration darkened the room.

And finally, finally, after staying by the operating room door for far too long, “Chief? He’s pulled through… Touch and go… Have to guard against infection… he’s a lucky sonovabitch… ten minutes later and we couldn’t have saved him…”

Rose, who had been pacing for hours, sat heavily beside her and burst into tears. Peggy reached out automatically, patting her hand and making soothing sounds. “What could have happened?” Rose said again. “He was talking to me, chipper as anything, complaining about you taking more holidays, complaining about the heat and no pizza…”

Peggy’s hand gripped a bit tighter, “Me taking more holidays?”

Rose blushed, “Yes. Well. I know it was interfering of me, but when I came to pick up the reports from Chief Sousa and I saw you… I mean, the plane was leaving soon… and I didn’t want Chief Thompson to wait for you and miss it…”

Peggy wanted to be angry. She wanted to chastise Rose for interfering, for sticking her nose in other people’s business. For taking something upon her self that she had absolutely no right…

Daniel limped over to the two women at that moment, his steady gaze on hers. “Thompson is tucked up for the night with two agents on guard and strict orders not to let anyone in to finish the job. We need to clear out and start again in the morning.”

Peggy’s heart clenched when he turned first to Rose, “I’ll give you a ride home, Rose. You need to rest. If it weren’t for you, everything would have been very different.”

A good chief. A good man. One who not only put his body on the line for others, but one for whom people would willingly sacrifice themselves as well.

Peggy squeezed Rose’s hand comfortingly and stood. Before she could open her mouth, Daniel said, “There’s room in the car for three. I’ll drop Rose first and then you, Peg.”

All the sharp words that had been building up dissolved like rain in the sun.

The air had cooled in the growing dusk. The city was lit up like a Carnival sign, diminishing the very stars with their brash cheer. The car was heading out of town towards Stark’s mansion before any words found their way back to the surface.

“Daniel, where are we going?”

He looked over at her, his expression unreadable in the dim car. “I thought you might be most comfortable at Stark’s. Let Mr. Jarvis take care of you.”

She struggled to find words amongst all the questions that crowded into her brain.

Then she sighed, and reached out a hand to clasp his arm. The fog she had been in all day dissipated, and she knew – she knew – what she wanted.

“Take me home, Daniel. To your home. If you’ll have me.”

And the brightness of the LA sun was nothing compared to the smile on Daniel Sousa’s face as he turned the car around.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They had come so far. But even stepping over the threshold was like entering a new world.

The night deepened as they drove into the valley, and when Daniel glanced over, Peggy’s eyes were closed and her breathing had slowed. He gave himself a moment to just revel in the wonder of her being there, beside him, instead of in a plane flying back to the life he had left with a mingled sense of failure and relief.

Peggy Carter, in his car. Peggy Carter, in his arms, making those urgent noises in her throat as she wrapped herself around him. Daniel moved uneasily in his seat at the thought. He had spent the better part of two years desperate for the least bit of attention from Peggy – now it felt as if everything he had ever wanted had fallen into his hands, and he was terrified he would drop it.

He pulled up in front of the little house he had bought with the help of a GI Bill loan. It was sweetly pretty – the home he had pictured Violet in, not Peggy. Of course, he had never dared to picture Peggy in any domestic situation. She was all fire and energy; intelligence and strength. He could not picture her in his sunny kitchen making coffee. Or doing laundry. Or even in his tidy, Army-regulation bedroom.

He turned to look at her, still peacefully sleeping in the passenger seat of his car, and the future flooded over him – Peggy in his home, in his arms, in his bed. Cooking breakfast, drinking tea, making love. Having children…

She sighed and her eyes fluttered open, woken perhaps by the lack of movement and engine sound. He echoed her sigh – visions of lifting her from the car and carrying her over the threshold scattered with the pain in his right thigh, and the knowledge that he would be more likely to drop her on her delectable bottom if he even tried such a maneuver. Not to mention she would have to be half-dead to allow any man to sweep her off her feet.

“Are we here?” Peggy peered out the window into the dark street, and turned to smile at him a little tremulously. He leaned closer, intending to kiss her, but she had already turned to push the door open. He rolled his eyes and struggled out to open the car trunk. She was there before him, reaching for both cases, but he grabbed the larger one without a word.

He motioned her to go before him - juggling keys and case and crutch, unlocking and opening the door and waited for her to step inside, swallowing the lump in his throat. “The guest bedroom is down the hall,” he said, “And a washroom beside it, if you’d like to freshen up. Perhaps a bath while I make some dinner?”

She turned to him, her mouth a little open as if to say something, but something made her stop, give him a bright smile, and reach for her other suitcase.

“No, no,” he held on to it. “I’ll carry it. Bellhop service right to the door of your room, madam.” His grin was a little crooked. “Of course, more hop than bell here.”

She grinned at the comment, but her smile dimmed a little as she moved further into the hallway.

The house was as sweet inside as out – pastel colours and soft furnishings, lamps with pretty shades, floral wallpaper and filmy curtains. She looked over her shoulder at him, “Daniel, it’s lovely. Your house.”

Daniel shrugged, a little embarrassed. “It came mostly furnished. Violet…” He cleared his throat. Violet had bought things at thrift shops and church bazaars to ‘freshen it up’. He had never argued, or particularly noticed that his house looked more like her than it did him. Since Peggy’s accident – since Violet had broken the engagement – he had hardly been in the house except to change and catch a few hours’ sleep in the narrow single bed in the smaller of the two bedrooms. He looked around as if seeing it for the first time. The house now reminded him uncomfortably of his grandmother’s house in New York.

“It’s very comfortable, Daniel. So much bigger than a New York apartment!”

So much smaller than a Stark mansion, he thought grimly.

He stopped at the door to the large guest bedroom, setting the suitcase down but not stepping over the threshold. “There are towels and things in the cupboard. I’ll just… Would you like something? A cup of tea? A drink?”

“Tea would be lovely, thank you.” Her voice was cool and clipped.

“I’ll go start dinner then. You must be starved.”

He turned away before he did something unforgivable, like kiss her and never come up for air.

He concentrated fiercely on brewing tea in a proper teapot, scrambling eggs and grating cheese, slicing tomatoes and frying bacon, not thinking at all about Peggy Carter, naked in his bathroom, sinking into hot water with a sigh, soaping up long legs… he closed his eyes and swallowed hard as he heard the water draining out of the tub. By the time she found the kitchen, wrapped in a robe over wide-legged pajama trousers, he had himself back under control, and set a plate of food on the table in front of her.

“Sorry – haven’t been grocery shopping lately. Larder is a bit empty.”

“This looks perfect, Daniel, thank you.”

They ate quietly, concentrating on the food. Daniel knew they needed to talk – he wanted to talk – but every conversation dwindled into nothing. Talk about work? He was sick of work – of death and blood and fear and dark nothingness. Talk about Jack? There was nothing to say that hadn’t been said again and again for hours in the hospital. Talk about Dr. Wilkes? Whitney Frost? Howard Stark?

Captain Rogers?

He cleared his throat. “Tell me something about you I don’t know.”

She looked up at him, surprise darkening her deep brown eyes. “Something you don’t know? You’ve read my files. You know everything.”

“No, something that isn’t in the files. Something – I don’t know – what were you like as a kid?”

She chuckled, a warm sound that slid into him. “I was a terror.”

He grinned back at her, “No, I said tell me something I don’t know about you.”

She laughed then, full and rich, and he ached to touch her. “I liked to fight. To climb trees. To battle dragons. My brother, Michael and I, we would spend hours in the garden. Oh, it made my mother so angry! I never could act like a proper lady, you know.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother. Just the two of you?”

She was silent a moment, eyes downcast. “Yes.”

Daniel said nothing for a moment. He knew that look. “He died?”

Her eyes met his. “He was my best friend. I think he knew me better than anyone else ever has.”

The world slowed around them as they sank into each other’s gaze. He leaned towards her, his hand reaching for hers. They were a breath away from each other when the phone rang.

He swore as she jumped back, then swore again as he stumbled getting up from the chair. He reached the phone after four rings, and answered, “Sousa.”

He listened to the voice on the other end of the line, and said “Yes. No. Thank you for letting us know.”

Peggy was on her feet, clutching his arm, “Jack?” There was a wealth of fear in her voice, with a simmering anger underneath it.

He said, “His heart stopped. Again. They brought him back, but Peggy… he was out for a while. They are saying there could be permanent brain damage.”

Her hands were over her mouth. “Why did this happen? Who would attack Jack? He was on his way back home…”

Home, he noticed. Not New York.

“Peggy…” he reached out to her, but she turned away, rubbing a hand briskly over her eyes.

“I’ll take kitchen duty, as you cooked.” Her voice was cool again, and he was struck by her composure. What did it cost her, he wondered, to pull her emotions back so quickly?

He stayed in the sitting room, listening to her move around his kitchen, and tried to imagine a life with her, here in this little house. Sharing domestic chores, listening to the news on the radio, sitting together on the couch, her knitting little garments…

That final vision cracked his pretty picture from side to side. As if Peggy would ever sit still long enough to knit even something so small as a baby bootie! As if he would ask her to limit herself to the role of a house-wife and mother. It would be like caging a falcon.

He put his head back, eyes still closed, and sighed, rubbing at his throbbing right thigh. It had been a lovely dream.

“Daniel?”

He turned to look at her, his face blankly pleasant. “You must be as tired as I am,” he said. “Perhaps we should call it a night? Tomorrow will be a long day. Another long day.”

He could see the exhaustion running through her as her shoulders slumped.

“Yes. Perhaps we should.”

He walked her to her bedroom, and said good night at the door, cold lips brushing her warm cheek. He made it to his tiny bedroom without throwing himself at her feet. He washed and dressed his stump, as he did every night, meticulously checking for signs of abrasion or infection. Then he ducked his head under the cold water tap and held it there until he stopped shaking.

When he stepped out into his bedroom, Peggy was sitting on his narrow bed, still wearing her robe. She looked up at him, eyes drowned in tears which did not fall.

“Please don’t make me sleep in the guest room, Daniel.”   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who encouraged a continuation of this story, especially TheAuthor44, TheGirlFromINVISIBLE, and Annie+MacDonald. I had promised myself that one-shots would be enough, but perhaps not.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy Carter has to dance all the same steps, but backwards, and in heels.

What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?   
Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?

Beatrice, Act III, Scene 1, _Much Ado about Nothing_

 

Peggy Carter hated napping. It left her heavy-eyed and disconnected. As if this day hadn’t been disconnecting enough.

She had planned to be on a flight back to New York, had steeled herself to say good-bye to Mr. Jarvis, to Ana, to Rose. (Not to Howard. One never said good-bye to Howard. He made sure of that.) She had seen the sorrow in their eyes and a little pity. And perhaps a kind of love based on survival in the face of terrible odds.

_“You underestimate your allure, Miss Carter.”_

Perhaps she did.

By now, her cab should be pulling up in front of the Stark pied-à-terre she shared with Angie. A few minutes more and she’d have been soaking in the huge tub in her suite, sipping on a whiskey, making up stories about movie stars and Hollywood glamour to entertain Angie.

Instead – hospitals, anxiety, bad coffee, Thompson shot, maybe dying…

And Daniel.

Daniel, who had driven her to Stark’s without a question. Who had turned around without a word (although with a smile that lit the sky). Who had taken the suitcase from her, escorted her into his little dollhouse lovingly decorated by Violet, the woman he had planned to marry, then looked around as if he had never seen it before when she commented on it.

Daniel, who had taken her to the door of the master bedroom with a Wedding Ring quilt thrown over the double bed and potpourri on the bedside table, and then left her.

Suggested she take a bath while he cooked her supper.

She had flung herself into his arms not eight hours earlier. Kissed him stupid in his office chair. She knew he wanted her – had felt the evidence of that. She knew he loved her – he had told her so.

Well, he had told her Violet believed it was true, and Peggy had faith that no woman in Violet’s position would say _that_ unless she also had good evidence.

She dropped her clothes on the bed and ran a bath, arguing furiously with Daniel in her head.

“You tell me you are in love with me. You stop Jason from shooting me – risk the destruction of the world. You nearly get caught up in the rift, and don’t you tell me, Daniel Sousa, that somewhere in that stupid thick head of yours you didn’t do _that_ for me. You kissed me back! Then you bring me to your home and treat me like your 90-year-old grandmother? I don’t think so!”

She moaned as she sank into the bathtub, hot water curling around her exhausted body, feeling the sting where the wound in her side still itched and pulled. Her stomach rumbled unflatteringly loudly. Aside from stale sandwiches sometime in the late afternoon, food in the shape of breakfast at Howard’s seemed years ago. She sank under the water, submerging her head completely.

“And now you won’t even kiss me. What is going on? Did I come on too strong? Well, of course I did. I suppose I should have waited for you to make the first move, Chief Sousa? Isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place? That’s what got Violet’s heart broken – me showing up and throwing her future in the tip. But _you_! You knew how you felt! Then you leave New York and don’t answer my phone calls. Don’t write a letter. Pretend I don’t exist as soon as you make it to California.”

She looked around for soap and shampoo, and was not surprised to find good quality products on a small shelf beside the bathtub. Violet, no doubt. At least they smelled of honey and almond, not flowers.

The towels on the rack were large and thick and increased Peggy’s sense of outrage. As did the smell of bacon and cheese that filled the small house. She stalked towards the kitchen, and stopped dead in the doorway.

The kitchen was bathed in the last dying rays of the sun, which illuminated the petals of a small bright flowering shrub just outside the large window over the sink. Daniel, strong forearms shown off by his short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt, stood balanced in front of the stove, plating up a mound of scrambled eggs covered with melted cheese, and several slices of perfectly crispy bacon. He turned smoothly to put the plate down on the table at the place he had set for her.

She knew it was her place because of the delicate china teacup beside the silverware. A china teapot, milk jug, and sugar bowl were grouped on the same side of the table. On a small plate were three thin slices of lemon.

Her heart stuttered and fell. All the sharp, angry words she had stored up like ammunition for battle dissipated, and she sat down tentatively, as if trying not to disturb a person who had been very ill and needed rest.

“Sorry – haven’t been grocery shopping lately. Larder is a bit empty.”

“This looks perfect, Daniel, thank you.”

The silence echoed in her head. She could hear her own chewing. If something wasn’t said – if he didn’t speak – she was going to explode.

The food tasted wonderful. And the tea, with a slice of lemon, the way her mother had preferred it, was perfect.

Years of builders’ tea – strong and thick with milk and sugar, drunk out of thermos flasks and infused with the smells of hardworking men – were erased by the delicate scent.

Daniel’s face was a study in concentration as he cleaned his plate. He ate like a soldier – food as fuel and not pleasure. But surely he couldn’t cook like this if he didn’t appreciate food. Even this simple meal was prepared with attention to detail. She longed to ask him who had taught him to cook, whether he had worked in a kitchen, or just, like Manfredi, learned at his mother’s knee. But the silence had become oppressive, shutting down her polite society manners.

Daniel cleared his throat. “Tell me something about you I don’t know.”

“Something you don’t know? You’ve read my files. You know everything.”

When he was investigating her as a spy for Leviathan. And perhaps before, when he had caught her in the file room. It hurt, the thought that he might have looked in Steve’s evidence box, might have been checking up on her even then.

“No, something that isn’t in the files. Something – I don’t know – what were you like as a kid?”

That surprised a chuckle out of her. “I was a terror.”

“No, I said tell me something I don’t know about you.” There was that grin. The same cheeky smirk she had kissed off his face only this morning.

The laughter was even more of a surprise than the chuckle had been. “I liked to fight. To climb trees. To battle dragons. My brother, Michael and I, we would spend hours in the garden. Oh, it made my mother so angry! I never could act like a proper lady, you know.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother. Just the two of you?”

“Yes.” Heart-stopping.

It’s not that she ever forgot about Michael. But sometimes she would go days without hearing his voice behind a door, smelling his distinctive blend of tobacco and bay rum in an empty room. She could almost feel him now, standing behind her.

“He died?” The sympathy in Daniel’s eyes reminded her that they had both lost people. Everyone they knew had lost people. Could sorrow be shared? Or did it weigh even heavier when spread amongst a generation?

“He was my best friend. I think he knew me better than anyone else ever has.”

Their hands were almost touching on the table. He was so close, she could feel the warmth of his body, and she swayed towards him, yearning.

Then the phone rang, and they both jumped in different directions.

The news from the hospital was bad, and Peggy could hardly contain her rage and fear. She did not know how to deal with the void that Thompson’s hotel room had been. Not a clue. Nothing to follow up on.

Daniel looked stricken. As if he was somehow to blame for her distress, for Jack’s shooting. A good chief, yes. But one that took too much on himself.

Shouldered the world and took it to the edge of the rift with him.

Shuddering, she struggled to maintain control. She could at least try not to make things more difficult for Daniel. She offered to do kitchen duty and escaped.

The word _sweet_ rattled around her brain as she washed dainty dishes with cheerful cloths and put them away onto paper-covered shelves in tidy cupboards, wiped down the counters and table, even found a broom and swept the floor, conscious of her mother’s critical eye watching for any hints of carelessness. Her poor mother had tried so hard to train her to be a good wife and mother, the kind of caring and selfless woman Violet had grown up to be. A nurse, a nurturer, a nester – everything in this little house glowed with Violet’s touch. Peggy was torn between wanting to match up to the paragon of housewifely duties and deliberately smashing things to smithereens.

Oh dear. She must be tired.

She went back to the sitting room to see Daniel, eyes closed and head back on the settee. His eyes looked bruised in a face gray with exhaustion, and his right hand rubbed irritably at his thigh, but when she said his name, he smiled at her and said, “You must be as tired as I am. Perhaps we should call it a night? Tomorrow will be a long day. Another long day.”

Her shoulders slumped at the polite dismissal.

“Yes. Perhaps we should.”

She stood in the pretty pink and yellow bedroom, staring at herself in the long oval mirror over the dressing table. If Daniel looked exhausted, she looked drained. She had pulled her wet hair back into a loose plait after her bath, and it had dried flat against her head. Her lips held only a pale blush of natural colour in startling contrast to her usual blood-red. Her eyes were huge sunken pools in a ghost-white face. She glanced at the bed and shuddered. She could not climb into it and face sleep, that vengeful phantom. She could not face anything more alone.

She turned and walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and to the small room she knew Daniel slept in. She could hear water running in the adjoining washroom. She did not stop to think, simply opened the door, walked in, and sat on the narrow bed.

When Daniel stepped out of the bathroom, she looked into his face and struggled to keep her voice from shaking.

“Please don’t make me sleep in the guest room, Daniel.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same scene from the other POV. Because there are three sides to every story - his, hers, and, somewhere in the middle, the truth.
> 
> Thanks again to all who left comments, especially to Annie+MacDonald for the Much Ado echoes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?
> 
>             Benedick, Act IV, Scene 1, _Much Ado about Nothing ___

 

Crutch in hand, Daniel shifted towards the bed, heedless, perhaps for the first time since waking up in the field hospital in Belgium, of the stump protruding from the leg of his boxer shorts. Carefully, he lowered himself to the bed, an arm’s length from the woman sitting bolt upright with a face so pale as to be nearly transparent, eyes dark and drowning, ashen lips trembling. She looked more like a schoolgirl than the self-possessed career woman he was so familiar with.

He cupped a gentle hand around her cheek, smoothing his thumb over her skin to catch the tear on her lashes.

“You are so tired, sweetheart,” he murmured.

“I can’t close my eyes. I keep seeing…” Her voice was so soft he leaned closer to hear. “I keep seeing you… the rift… I was holding on with everything I had and all I could think was that you were going to leave me too…”

“I won’t leave you. I’m with you to the end, remember?”

“You left. Just like Michael left. And Steve. People leave me. Everyone around me dies.”

“I didn’t die. I knew you’d save me. I knew you’d figure out a way.”

Nonsense, of course, because he had thought it was the end. And he would have gone willing into the rift to save the world for her. But he could not bear the heartbreak in her eyes, the weariness in her voice. He would lie her to sleep, and save truth for the cold light of day.

She swayed toward him. “Don’t leave me alone.”

“Of course not. Hush, Peg. Lie down.” Gently, he wrapped an arm around her, urging her towards the wall, tucking her against his left side as he squirmed into the small space remaining on the bed.

She put her head on his shoulder, her hand warm over his heart through the thin fabric of his undershirt. The light cover he usually slept under was at the bottom of the bed – he did not think he would feel the cold tonight. Peggy’s breath slowed as he ran his hand soothingly down her arm, and he closed his eyes once he was sure she slept.

He woke some hours later, chest heaving, face wet with tears, darkness pressing him into the mattress. Peggy had turned towards the wall, her back warm against his side. He brushed a shaky hand over his cheek, shamed by his body’s betrayal, and moved to lever himself off the bed.

“Hmm?”

He brushed a gentle hand over Peggy’s hair. “Hush – go back to sleep.”

She rolled over, searching for him. “Daniel? Is everything…?”

“Everything is fine, Peg. Go back to sleep.”

He hoped she would assume the huskiness in his voice was from sleep, but she reached up unerringly to his face, rubbing soft fingers across the bridge of his nose and over his cheekbones.

Then she sighed. “You’re crying. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry. I’ll just…”

Her hand clamped down on his wrist as he tried to swivel away from her out of the bed, and she said patiently, “Daniel.”

“Peggy, it’s nothing. I had a nightmare. It happens.” He knew his voice was harsh, but he could barely stand her friendship. He would break under her pity.

She sat up, her face illuminated by the faint glow of streetlights outside the window. He turned his back on her and reached for the wall to steady him as he stood and moved to the bathroom.

When he came back, after washing his face in cold water again, she was still sitting, close to the foot of the bed now, curled defensively against the wall. “What nightmare?”

“Just standard ‘can’t run and something coming to get you’ nightmare. Nothing to worry about.” He remained standing, needing the distance. The voracious hunger of Zero Matter receded a little further as the dream faded. “Sorry I woke you.”

She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Daniel, we need to talk.”

Now she wanted to talk.

“In the morning. You need to sleep.”

“I need to talk.”

“Fine. I need to sleep.” He lay down, on his back but with his face turned away from her.

“Daniel.”

He closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.

“The news about Michael came on my wedding day.” Her voice was so quiet he wasn’t sure he had heard her. He held his breath.

“He had put my name up for the S.O.E. I introduced him to my fiancé – a perfectly nice man who worked in the Home Office. Not a soldier, although he looked good in uniform. Michael despised him on sight.” A hint of laughter rippled through the words.

“The telegram came while I was waiting to go to the church. I cancelled the wedding – cancelled everything – and reported to the S.O.E. the next week. Michael’s death was the start of a whole new life for me. Howard Stark, Colonel Phillips, Dugan and the Howling Commandoes… Steve. All because Michael died.”

He couldn’t bear it, could not keep silent at the depth of that pain. He sat up, reaching out a hand to touch hers. “That whole new life came because you had the courage to reach for it. Michael’s death wasn’t the cost. It was the seed.”

Her eyes shone with gratitude instead of the tears he had expected. “We all have nightmares, Daniel. There is no shame in acknowledging the losses. What would you be if you didn’t?”

He couldn’t stop the words, “Jack Thompson.”

Peggy looked down at her hands, twisted tightly together. “Believe me, Jack has nightmares.”

“Did he wake you up, too?” Again, the words were out before he could stop them.

He heard the intake of breath, but her answer was soft. “We were in the plane coming back from Russia. He told me.”

Daniel turned, putting his foot on the ground as if to pace away, but not able to. “Peggy – that was unforgivable. I am so sorry…”

Her hand touched his back. “Nothing is unforgivable but turning away now, Daniel. You wanted to talk. You know there are things we have to say, things that we need to ask. Don’t back away from that now.”

“I don’t….”

“Are you in love with Violet?”

Daniel spun to face her. “What? No! I mean… yes. I loved her. I thought we would… be good together.”

Peggy nodded. “You would have been. She was good for you, Daniel. You would have been happy together.”

“I guess I don’t really want to be happy. Not like that.”

“What do you want?” Peggy was closer now, sitting on her knees.

“I want to be… challenged. Questioned. Argued with.” He moved so that his words breathed warmth across her lips. “I want to be furious, and scared, and pushed…”

“And adored…” she whispered.

“No… pedestals are too narrow for me.”

She huffed a small laugh. “I do adore you, Daniel Sousa.”

He moved back a bit to look into her eyes. “Why?”

She rolled her eyes and her voice rose to its familiar confident level, “Honestly, Daniel.”

“No, really. Why me? You could have your pick of any man out there…” Steve Rogers’ name did not cross his lips, but hung between them.

She sat back and he mentally cursed himself for blowing this ship out of the water. “Steve was a good person with the most solid moral centre of anyone I have ever met. I didn’t think there was another person like him. And then I met you.”

He looked away, down at the place his leg had been. His missing toes were cold on the floor they could not feel.

Peggy’s hands curled around his jaw to force him to look into her eyes. “You, Daniel Sousa. You, who always chooses to do the right thing, no matter how much it hurts. Do you think I don’t know what it must have felt like when you thought I was betraying the SSR – you? – for Howard Stark? Do you think I don’t know how hard it was to help me save Jason” – he jerked away from her hands, but she simply tightened her grip – “thinking that I might want to be with him? Even after you had lost Violet because of me? Do you think I don’t know that you tried to shut down the rift generator because you thought you were the most expendable?” She stopped, trembling, and took a deep breath.

“Do you think I don’t know,” her voice was fierce now, and Daniel was horrified to see tears in her eyes, “That you thought I would let you go? Well, you were wrong. You were wrong. I choose you. I need you. I love you…”

This time it was his mouth that stopped hers, his hands that pulled her close, his urgency that drove them to the bed in a tangle of limbs and bedclothes that had them struggling to get closer – to touch and taste and know.

Cool silk and smooth cotton gave way to warm flesh as seeking hands discovered secrets, as avid tongues drew sighs and gasps. Muttered words of love and longing became pleas for ‘more’ and ‘again’ and names slid onto the heated air and into each other’s mouths like prayers.

Time stopped, then stretched, then stopped again – heartbeats suspended as his heat met hers – then sped into a vortex as they moved and breathed in a rhythm that drove and burst into flashing lights and moans and laughter; as lips met in tenderness and hands soothed instead of incited, as breath slowed and skin cooled and heartbeats steadied and finally it was just two people wrapped in each other’s arms, tumbling towards sleep.

“Daniel?”

“Peggy?”

“You didn’t say it.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you didn’t. You said you loved Violet.”

“I’m sure I said it – you know… when we were…”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Are you sure?”

“It _definitely_ doesn’t count.”

A moment of silence.

“Daniel?”

“Peggy?”

“OH!” A frustrated sigh and a thump on his shoulder, and she began to roll over in high dudgeon.

“Peggy…” A warm mouth closed over hers, gentle hands wrapped around her, molding her against his firm body. She held against him for a moment, but then melted into his embrace.

“Margaret Carter, I love you with everything I ever was and ever will be. I was in love with you before I ever knew you walked on the earth. I will be in love with you to the end of time.”

She sighed against his mouth, lips red with kissing, body flooded with pleasure. “That’s better.”


End file.
